The Long Road To Dalat

Hoi An was charming, but after four days we felt the need to move on.   Keeping with our southerly descent we pondered heading to Nha Trang, the next logical stop on the well-worn tourist track.  After some debate, we decided to move past this less than inspiring beach town, and head to the mountain town of Dalat.  We knew it was going to be a fairly big travel day, but we weren't quite prepared for a full eighteen hour bus ride. Two buses actually, the first an overnight sleeper, the second a standard tour bus.  The sleeper bus was a decent way to travel, albeit bumpy, noisy, and a bit cramped.  Eleven hours later we were in Nha Trang for what was supposed to be an hour transfer, but actually turned out to be closer to three.   It didn't take us long to see that we had made the right decision to keep on moving.   The hotels all appeared to be cold utilitarian high rises and the beach while clean, was crowded and unremarkable.  The ride to Dalat started well enough, lovely coastal scenery, rice paddies, and small villages.  The problem was, we were told the ride would take five hours, and our Lonely Planet guidebook suggested that with the opening of a new road the trip would be closer to four.   I'm not sure if we were on the new road, or the guidebook jumped the gun, but the last thirty miles involved climbing up a steep dirt track under major construction.  We arrived in Dalat exhausted, dazed, and swearing never to ride in the back of a bus again.

Steve